OPERA: 'MADDALENA,' A FRAGMENT FROM PROKOFIEV

By DONAL HENAHAN, Special to the New York Times

Published: June 21, 1982

ST. LOUIS, June 19—
Music's history is like an archeological dig, littered with fragments waiting to be pieced together by the right specialist in shards and old bones. Prokofiev's fifth opera, ''Maddalena,'' is a fragmentary work, which he started when he was 20 and never finished orchestrating, although he did complete the piano score. Rescued from the boneyard, it had its first concert performance four years ago in England and now has been given its American premiere by the Opera Theater of St. Louis.

The one-act opera, which Prokofiev began in 1911, revised extensively in 1913 and then apparently put on the shelf, caught the interest of the English conductor Edward Downes, who scored three of its four scenes in what he hoped was Prokofiev's youthful style. The first staged performance took place last year in Graz, Austria. Because so much of the score is not by Prokofiev, there never can be agreement as to its scholarly value. In some respects, the issues are the same as those that arose when Deryck Cooke completed Mahler's 10th Symphony or when Mahler himself worked over Weber's ''Der Drei Pintos.''

What can be judged confidently is the viability of the ''Maddalena'' that the work of Mr. Downes has allowed us to hear, regardless of whether the results reflect what Prokofiev would have written. Friday evening's performance by the St. Louis company demonstrated pretty conclusively that the work is a curio that teeters on the edge of melodramatic parody. It belongs to the same genre of early-20th-century opera as Montemezzi's ''L'Amore dei Tre Re,'' with its legendary tone and supposedly shocking Grand Guignol violence.

Although the score was written shortly before ''The Gambler,'' it is much less acidulous and harsh than that Prokofiev opera. Much of the time, in fact, ''Maddalena'' sounds like early Strauss - ''Salome,'' perhaps - and the vocal lines, though difficult to manage, rarely take on the jaggedness and rhythmic complexities of later Prokofiev music.

The chief weakness of the work is its libretto, a creaking affair concerning a Venetian lady whose husband is a painter. He is blond and good and loves her with the love that only a gentle artist can bestow on a woman. She, however, has been secretly carrying on with his friend, a dark and bad man who dresses in boots and black leather. Her secret comes out, and while an overhead bulb flashes on and off to simulate lightning flashes, the two men stab each other to death. Maddalena watches indifferently while her Mr. Good and her Mr. Evil gasp their last. She is a little sorry because she very much liked having both kinds of lovers, but finally she looks at the bodies and says, ''Perhaps I loved neither of you.'' In this English version, translated by Mr. Downes, the cruel beauty exults at gaining her freedom and calls the guards to remove the bodies.

Faced with such a silent-movie scenario and music that did not do much to obscure its flimsiness, what could an opera company make of ''Maddalena''? Surprisingly enough, quite a bit. The weaker the piece, the more imperative it is that the performers take it with utter seriousness. The St. Louis production had, in Stephanie Sundine, a soprano able to carry off the title role without a hint of flinching.

She has Katharine Hepburn bones, the carriage of a lioness and a splendid, intelligently used voice. James Schwisow, as the painter Genaro, and Edward Crafts as his black-hearted friend, Stenio, were both more dramatically credible than a reader of their lines could have possibly expected. The music often lay cruelly high for Mr. Schwisow's tenor and the baritone of Mr. Crafts had nothing much to recommend it in this harsh part except brute power.

Lou Galterio's direction created the illusion of narrative movement and sustained the necessary legendary atmosphere, while in the pit Bruce Ferden kept the orchestra from blotting out the singers while still providing high-voltage intensity.

For the second half of the double-bill, the company made a stab at staging ''La Verbena de la Paloma,'' a zarzuela by Tomas Breton. It was a rare miscalculation by this remarkable opera company. Zarzuela style is indeed broadly comic but in no way resembles a high school musical. Except for Maria Benitez and a couple of other flamenco dancers, nobody on stage seemed to have any clear idea about what to do from moment to moment. Mr. Ferden's conducting was tentative, lacking the swell and swagger that this modest music must have to exert any charm at all. The Casts MADDALENA, Sergei Prokofiev. Libretto by Baron M. Lieven. English translation and or- chestration completed by Edward Downes. Con- ducted by Bruce Ferden. Directed by Lou Galterio. Scenic design by Cletus Johnson. Costume design by John Carver Sullivan. Lighting design by Peter Kaczorowski. Maddalena ...........................Stephanie Sundine Gemma ..............................Kathleen Broderick Genaro .................................James Schwisow Romeo ...................................Thomas Arnold Stenio ..................................Edward Crafts and LA VERBENA DE LA PALOMA, zarzuela by Tomas Breton. Libretto by D. Ricardo de la Vega. English translation by Jose F. Vasquez and Mayda Prado. Conducted by Mr. Ferden. Directed by Horacio Aragon. Scenic design by Timothy Jozwick. Costume coordinator, Leanne Mahoney. Lighting design by Peter Kaczorow- ski. Choreography by Maria Benitez. Casta ...............................Virginia Browning Susana ....................................Mayda Prado Rita .......................................Jan Curtis Aunt Antonia ...........................Julia Jonathan Julian ..............................Enrique Baquerizo Don Hilarion ............................Douglas Perry Don Sebastian .............................John Davies Principal Dancer ........................Maria Benitez Performed by the Opera Theater of St. Louis at the Loretto-Hilton Theater, St. Louis.